The possibilities opened up by Artificial Intelligence can be “a real turning point for the racket sports industry”, SportAI co-founder Lauren Pedersen has told The Padel Paper.
Lauren was part of a team that launched SportAI in late 2023, a company that aims to give social padel players the tools they need to improve their game through the use of AI, using computer vision and machine learning to analyse and give feedback on a player’s technique, offering an alternative to subjective feedback from coaches.
“We can now take in video from any source,” said Lauren. “From a mobile phone, courtside camera or a broadcast, we can capture what is happening in the video. It could focus on the body movement, showing what in particular is happening within someone’s technique, it can track the speed and angles of a movement and compare that to thousands of other players and the pro players. You would then get immediate feedback and data on how to improve.
“It has been a huge gap in the market to have this data and follow-up. Previously, you would have to be one of the world’s elite players with a whole team of coaches, one of whom is a video analyst, who is tasked with taking in video and manually tagging and drawing on the video. That’s fine if you’re a professional who is earning lots of money, but nobody else in the market has access to this data.”
SportAI’s initial aim was to focus on technique and performance analysis, offering data to back up the subjective opinions of players, coaches and commentators alike. However, after gathering footage, they quickly realised that the benefits of AI could stretch much further.
“We realised that by capturing video of a whole padel game, we can also track the movement of the players, how many forehands they hit, how many backhands they hit, how far they ran, how fast the ran. We get a lot of data along the way. This data can be used for training purposes, but it can also be really fun. You can instantly get highlights of the longest rally, or all the rallies where you won. That can be really fun and engaging for people who are playing on a more social level rather than a competitive level.”
SportAI is not the only show in town. GameCam are also pushing technological advancement in the world of padel by releasing the GAMETRAQ. Static cameras are set up on the side of the court, aiming to capture all of the action from your match, before automatically generating match reports for each game. Playsight, which is gaining traction at clubs in the US, is another big player in the space.
Due to the relatively small size of a court compared to a rugby or football pitch, there are fewer barriers of entry for AI to enhance the grassroots racket sports world.
“It is a huge advantage where you can work with a single-camera solution,” stated Lauren (pictured above). “It doesn’t cost very much, it can be fixed at the back of the court and still view the whole court and get analysis for the game instantly. We are focused on racket sports first – tennis, padel and pickleball – so there is absolutely an advantage there.
“I think this can be a real turning point for the racket sports industry to really embrace technology. We believe that we can power this change from a performance perspective, as well as an engaging social perspective that hasn’t been there before.
“It is going to be incredible to partner with these forward-leaning and visionary organisations and federations to bring this to market. We think this will be universal and we think you’re going to love it.”
